NASCAR says no more secret fines for drivers

NASCAR Chairman Brian France addresses the media at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte on Thursday. (The Birmingham News/Doug Demmons)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - NASCAR has not been bashful about fining its drivers for making disparaging remarks about the sport and will continue to do so in the future.

But what it won't do any more is keep the punishments a secret. NASCAR announced Thursday during its annual preseason state of the sport address that all fines and punishments will be made public.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France he was responding to complaints from fans and the media about why fines that have been handed out for things like questioning whether a caution flag is legitimate should be kept secret.

"That's something that people think was a good thing," France said about the new open policy. "We were happy to do it."

But he also noted that - like other sports - NASCAR will not tolerate comments from its participants that denigrate the sport.

"If you challenge the integrity of the sport, we're going to deal with that," France said. "And we have to deal with that."

The new open policy is fine with team owner Roger Penske.

"There were concerns that some fines were public and some were not," Penske said. "Quite honestly, if you cross the line and get a fine, it should be in the paper."

Childress driver Jeff Burton also likes the new policy.

"I think public is the way to go," Burton said. "If I'm going to get a fine, I just as soon everybody knows about it."

But France and other NASCAR officials spent most of the presentation Thursday discussing their efforts to curb the two-car tandem racing at Talladega Superspeedway and Daytona International Speedway.

NASCAR has decided that tandem racing is a plague on the sport and has come up with a variety of changes to try to snuff it out.

"It's not good to put on a race that the vast majority of the sport doesn't like," NASCAR Vice President for Competition Robin Pemberton said.

So NASCAR has banned driver-to-driver radio communications during a race, increased the horsepower to engines by increasing the opening on restrictor plates, changed cooling systems to make them overheat quicker when a car is pushing and has reduced the size of the rear spoiler to make the cars harder to handle.

What NASCAR doesn't want to do is simply issue a rule banning tandem racing. That was tried at Talladega and the result was a race in which cars followed each other in a long line for lap after lap.

And NASCAR President Mike Helton said more changes are possible before next month's season-opening Daytona 500..

"I also suspect there could be some tweaking along the way," Helton said.

Drivers have said they believe that even though tandem racing will now be harder, it will still be the fastest way around the track and thus will be widely used. What NASCAR wants is what many fans have said they want -- a return to the big 30-car drafting packs that often spawned the Big One at Talladega.

Tandem racing came about after the new car was introduced with bumpers that line up perfectly for pushing and after Talladega and Daytona were repaved. The old bumpy surfaces made it impossible to push another car for very long.

Once drivers figured out that two cars together went as much as 10 mph faster than everybody else, everybody started doing it and the big packs disappeared.

Another big issue NASCAR will deal with in 2012 is the introduction of electronic fuel injection, a change long sought by auto manufacturers. Drivers who have tested fuel-injection cars say fans won't notice much difference from the old carburetor-powered engines.

Sprint Cup Director John Darby also made it clear that NASCAR will have zero tolerance for anyone tampering with the fuel-injection system.

"It's fair to say," Darby said of punishments that would be handed out, "it would be record-setting for us."

NASCAR is also likely to continue to modify its "Boys Have At It" policy of letting drivers handle their own disputes on the track. Limits were placed when things got out of hand in 2011, especially after Kyle Busch wrecked Ron Hornaday under caution during a truck race at Texas Motor Speedway and drew a rare suspension.

"We're going to discuss what out of hand means going forward," Pemberton said.